Deviation from this tradition is bound to dismiss the contemporary music of which I have been talking into isolation. Nor do I see how or why the situation should be otherwise. Why should the layman be other than bored and puzzled by what he is unable to understand, music or anything else? It is only the translation of this boredom and puzzlement into resentment and denunciation that seems to me indefensible. After all, the public does have its own music, its ubiquitous music: music to eat by, to read by, to dance by, and to be impressed by. Why refuse to recognize the possibility that contemporary music has reached a stage long since attained by other forms of activity? The time has passed when the normally well-educated man without special preparation could understand the most advanced work in, for example, mathematics, philosophy, and physics. Advanced music, to the extent that it reflects the knowledge and originality of the informed composer, scarcely can be expected to appear more intelligible than these arts and sciences to the person whose musical education usually has been even less extensive than his background in other fields. But to this, a double standard is invoked, with the words music is music, implying also that music is just music. Why not, then, equate the activities of the radio repairman with those of the theoretical physicist, on the basis of the dictum that physics is physics. - Milton Babbitt, Who Cares if You Listen? palestrant/babbitt.html
Posted on: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 12:59:09 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015